> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rich Salz" <rsalz@zolera.com>
> Subject: Re: NameValue and NameValueList data types
> I do the Apache name/value just fine in Python.
> I don't see why this is a more compelling, more "primitive" type than,
> say, most other types in the C++ STL, for example. Is it just because
> CORBA had a fondness for it?
I see name/value pairs as more fundamental for building and exchanging
semantic information - which is a lot more interoperable than exchanging
syntactical information. All you've got are names and indexes, anyway. There
are more syntaxes than there are semantics - and more are built each day,
while the semantics stay the same. And yes, this implies that people will be
building bridges - as long as there are programmers, there will be a need
for bridges.
I personally don't worry too much about making the One True Syntax for
something like a Hashmap - documenting the three or four most common ways of
doing a Hashmap is useful to me however.